


Above the Rain and Roses

by luckjustkissedyouhello



Series: Rollercoastermoon's Whumptober 2020 Fics [1]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Child Murder, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright Whump, Temporary Character Death, Whumptober 2020, author will add warnings if suggested, case related, malcolm is not the child abuse victim, prompt: hanging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:06:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26744098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckjustkissedyouhello/pseuds/luckjustkissedyouhello
Summary: Torturing Malcolm to get his answer is just the icing on a rather disturbing (but not all that original) cake.--or--A murder wants to know where his family is. Malcolm obviously does not want to tell him. It does not go great for Malcolm.
Series: Rollercoastermoon's Whumptober 2020 Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946800
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Above the Rain and Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Detailed content warnings in the end notes. Always feel free to ask me to add something, if you think I should have. 
> 
> Title from "Still Breathing" by Green Day. Look...I know what I did.

“We’re up to ninety seconds. You sure you don’t want to answer my question?” The man, the murderer, asks. Malcolm can see the sadistic joy in his captor’s face, hear it in his voice. Saw it in the corpses he left behind, long before Malcolm had a name and a face to attach that sadistic joy to.

The man, his name is Dale Hobart, really does want the answer to his question. He grabbed Malcolm off the street, right in front of his apartment door, to get that answer. Torturing Malcolm to get his answer is just the icing on a rather disturbing (but not all that original) cake. 

At least this one isn’t Malcolm’s fault. He didn’t ignore Gil’s repeated pleadings for him to call for backup, and then wait for said backup -the step Malcolm was working on, as a person, he swore. Hobart had snuck up on him as he was unlocking his front door, and, judging from the stinging burn at the back of his neck that Malcolm woke up with, tased him. Malcolm is just grateful he didn’t have another head injury to contend with - he was starting to worry about how many of those he’s racked up. And it was always harder to talk his way out of this kind of situation when he had a head injury. 

Of course, having a noose around his neck and being repeatedly hung by that noose by a sadistic murderer was also making it pretty hard to talk his way free. Talking, when he can, is getting harder. They’ve done this routine five times so far. Hobart will ask his question, Malcolm will refuse to answer, and then the chair will be kicked out from under him. Malcolm’s not been able to talk his way out of this, so far. When he’s had the breath to speak. 

Malcolm says nothing. He futilely pulls on the ropes tying his arms together behind his back, but they don’t budge. The wooden chair under his bare feet is warm, solid, if a little slick - Malcolm’s feet are sweating, all of him is sweating, part from the fear, part from exertion. 

“Tell me where my wife and son are,” Hobart demands, coming closer, ready to kick the chair out from under Malcolm. Again. 

Malcolm thinks of the four victims. All of them look-alikes for Dale Hobart Junior, DJ to his friends, Hobart’s son. Pale skin, blond hair, grey-blue eyes, small for their age. They’re all in Edrisa’s morgue, lined up on metal tables with shifting rings of bruises around their necks, broken bones. All of them were between thirteen and sixteen - DJ Hobart is fourteen. When they came looking for Dale Hobart Senior, they found DJ and his mother, Hobart’s soon to be ex wife Mary, instead. DJ isn’t a dumb kid. He put together the four dead teenagers that looked like him, and the police looking for his father quickly. Too quickly. Malcolm and Dani were talking to him when the poor teen put it all together, and he fell apart in front of their eyes. Smashed the glass of water he was holding and very nearly cut his own throat before Malcolm and Dani could restrain him. Malcolm has a line of ten stitches across his right palm, Dani had to get a few too, but DJ Hobart did not, and that was all that mattered. Well. Malcolm _had_ stitches in his palm - he’s long since broken them open struggling, he can feel the wetness soaked through the gauze that was covering the wound. Malcolm would die before he gave up DJ’s location to the sadistic bastard in front of him. They’re in police protective custody for a reason. 

“I want my boy,” Hobart tells him, casually setting the timer on his smartphone. One minute, thirty seconds. It plays, absurdly, a duck quack as the alarm. Malcolm tries very hard not to think of his father, of Martin Whitley going down this road instead of the one he did. Of morgues filled with Malcolm’s look-alikes. 

Anger flushes through Malcolm, hot and impotent. He tugs on the restraints, twists violently but there’s no give. Malcolm had hoped. He was a grown man, Hobart was used to torturing teenagers. But no. Malcolm can’t get his hands free. 

“Why, so you can finish what you started and kill your son?” Malcolm hears himself ask, not quite the ‘fuck you’ he wanted to say, but close. He’s already sworn to Hobart five times that he doesn’t know where DJ and Mary are - telling Hobart he doesn’t know is a waste of breath, so he uses it to ask his question instead. Get more information to complete his profile of Dale Hobart. 

Malcolm’s voice is awful, scratchy and raw, his throat swelling already - he knows that will probably kill him, in the end. Hobart will continue this and continue this even after Malcolm’s body tries to quit. There's evidence he revived the last two victims, the resulting saliva left DNA that will hopefully be used to convict Hobart. Hobart knows how to drag this out, but eventually, Malcolm’s throat will swell closed from all the abuse and CPR won’t be enough - he won’t have a working airway. Each minute Malcolm spends talking until then, dragging this process out in any manner he can, is another minute for Gil and the team to find him. He can see light coming through the high windows of the basement room he’s in - he’s been missing for several hours, though he doesn’t know how long, exactly. He’s usually the first at the precinct. They’ll know he’s missing soon, if they don’t already. They’ll come for him, Malcolm is sure. He’s just not sure if they’ll find him alive or dead. 

Hobart doesn’t answer Malcolm’s question. He kicks the chair out from under Malcolm. He doesn’t start the timer right away - not this time - he watches Malcolm with a furious glare for a few seconds that feel like minutes when your air supply is suddenly cut off, before he starts the timer. 

Malcolm tries not to struggle, there’s nothing he can do to free himself. Hobart is a sadist through and through, and Malcolm’s struggling only feeds Hobart. He wants to starve the man, deny him that pleasure. It might draw out the process more, give him more time, but Malcolm’s mostly motivated by spite and rage at this point, thinking of what those poor boys went through. 

But humans are animals when it comes down to it, and the animal instinct to fight, to survive, is strong. He counts to thirty or so in his head before that animalistic drive to live sets in, takes over. He starts to kick, twisting and pulling on his arms, hard. Hobart tied his arms together from his wrist to elbow, almost forcing his arms together all the way up his back. Malcolm kicks and gasps for breath that won’t come. He yanks on his arms, hard, trying to pull them apart, so hard that there is a pop in his left shoulder and fresh agony shooting from it tells him he managed to dislocate his shoulder, but that doesn’t get his hands free, of course. It just causes him pain. He can’t even scream because of the noose. 

He doesn’t mean to close his eyes, he’s so sure if he does that he may not open them again, but it _hurts_ and he has no escape from Hobart’s hungry gaze. His closed eyes mean he doesn’t see Hobart pick up the crowbar (it’s been on the table, he’s known it’s there, knew it was used on the poor dead boys, knew it was going to be used on him eventually). Over the sounds of his ragged attempts at breathing, at escape, Malcolm hears the whoosh from the long, punishing arc of a swing Hobart aims at him. He opens his eyes just in time to see the last few inches of the swing. He certainly feels it when the crowbar connects solidly with his right side ribs. 

Again, Malcolm can’t scream. Not even when he’s struck again, in almost the same exact spot. And then the duck starts to quack, the alarm saying it’s been ninety seconds. Hobart grins his sadistic bastard grin at Malcolm and doesn’t move to right the chair. He swings the crowbar again instead, this time hitting Malcolm’s left side. That somehow hurts more, because it jostles his dislocated shoulder, Malcolm thinks. 

Only then does the murderer bend down to pick up the chair. Malcolm, half way towards unconscious and half out of his mind with fear, does the only thing his brain can tell him to do to make the pain stop, he kicks out at Hobart. It’s dumb, and his barefoot hardly makes a sound as it connects with Hobart’s face, Malcolm can barely hear it over the rushing of blood in his ears, but it must be a lucky shot because he catches Hobart in the nose. Blood starts to pour down from it. 

Malcolm’s seeing spots, thinks: ‘ _Well, I’m going to die now_ ’ because Hobart looks up at him with such unbridled rage in his eyes, but to Malcolm's shock, he sets the chair down and Malcolm stands on it as quickly as he can get his legs to cooperate and land on the seat. It’s such a relief to have the pressure off his neck, to be able to breathe in again, that his knees almost buckle. 

Hobart is staring him in the eyes, blood leaking from his nose. Then, he laughs. It is not a good sound. Malcolm can hear that, even over his desperate coughs and whimpering gasps for breath. His chest is heaving, and Hobart probably broke some of his ribs, because there’s stabbing pains of pure agony shooting across his chest, but it’s some of the best oxygen he’s ever breathed in, all while a sadistic serial killer laughs. 

“You got balls, kid,” Hobart says, causally wiping blood away from his nose with the back of his sleeve. “I like that. You’ll last longer than anyone else, I think.” 

“Of course I will. I’m an adult,” Malcolm says, even though talking hurts, prevents him from just breathing deeply while he can. “Not your normal victim.” Malcolm’s never been good at _not_ running his mouth when he’s scared, when he’s angry. He’s both, at the moment. 

Hobart growls, low in his throat, like a goddamned animal, and swings the crowbar in an upward angle. The metal connects solidly with Malcolm’s left cheek, nearly spins him off the chair, but Hobart uses his free hand to grab Malcolm’s shirt, pull him down so they’re nearly eye to eye. Of course, only one of them has just been smashed in the face with a crowbar and has a noose around their neck, so Malcolm’s kind of failing hard at eye contact or...focusing on what Hobart’s saying. His mouth is moving. Malcolm’s head is spinning. Hobart probably isn’t offering to let him go, so it doesn't really matter all that much what he’s saying. The problem is he’s got Malcolm bent so far forward that the noose is cutting off most of his air supply, not fully, but enough. The bent position is not helping the pain in his ribs. 

Just when Malcolm thinks he’s going to pass out - it’s too much pressure on his aching ribs, not enough oxygen, his face is throbbing in time with his pounding heart it’s just _too much_ \- Hobart releases his shirt. The bastard even rights Malcolm when he starts to tip forward, unable to balance with his arms behind his back and all his energy going into not passing out. 

Malcolm stands there, gasping in breaths while he can, despite the pain in his face, his ribs. Hobart puts on a sad face and shakes his head in a parody of remorse. “But, I’m sorry, son. You’re gonna have to pay for what you just did.” It’s like Hobart is acting in a play, like he thinks this is how someone who is sincerely sorry for the punishment he’s about to dish out would act. Another tiny piece of Malcolm’s profile slides into place. 

Malcolm is too exhausted, too hurt to even take offense at the word ‘son’ that normally launches his heart into his throat - it’s already there. He doesn’t respond, he can’t figure out what to say. 

Hobart grabs Malcolm’s left leg - the one he connected with, Malcolm is sure it’s not a coincidence - and raises it up, tucks it under his arm, pinning it against his body. Malcolm tries desperately to pull his leg back, but he’s only got his other foot to balance on and not enough air in his body yet, not to mention all the probable broken ribs...he’s too weak to get his leg back. Hobart grins at him. Malcolm shakes his head, a silent, desperate plea. 

“My boy isn’t so good at learning his lessons either. I tried to teach him like this. I _tried_ to raise him right. But that bitch I married wouldn’t let me.” Hobart says it all so calmly, like he isn’t talking about the awful abuse he inflicted on his flesh and blood. It’s how they zeroed in on Hobart in the end: six weeks ago, Mary Hobart brought DJ to the emergency room, bruises around his neck from a belt, and a cracked rib from Hobart’s fist. Hobart posted bail and nobody had seen him since - well, except for the four boys he murdered. And now Malcolm. The incident was how they found Hobart - a doctor that had seen DJ that night had called the tip line after noticing the similarities between his living victim and the four dead teens. 

Hate bubbles up in Malcolm again, rising hot and it melts away some of the pain. “You’re a subhuman—“ that’s as far as Malcolm gets before his voice breaks and he starts to cough and gag and it’s too much, even for Malcolm’s high pain tolerance, everything goes bright and hot and he can feel himself losing consciousness. 

“Ah, ah, ah!” Hobart singsongs at him. “You know the rules: if you pass out, I add an extra fifteen seconds.” 

It works, absurdly. The terror of hanging from his neck for nearly two minutes pulls Malcolm back to the moment. Hobart must see it when Malcolm’s back with him. He grins, and doesn't look away from Malcolm's eyes as he raises the crowbar as high as his arm can reach and brings it down across Malcolm’s raised, trapped shin. 

Malcolm is so shocked by the pain he can’t even scream, not until the second strike. He wails in pain, injured ribs and damaged throat be damned. Hobart lets go of his leg abruptly, and Malcolm can’t stop his leg from swinging down, his foot from hitting the seat of the chair. He feels the broken edges of bone grind together. 

He passes out, threats of more time hanging or not, there’s only so much a body can take. 

~|~ 

He wakes. He’s slumped in the chair, slack in the rope allowing it - no fun hanging him if he’s unconscious, Malcolm supposes. Hobart asks him where DJ is. Malcolm can’t answer, wouldn’t if he could. 

“I know I said only fifteen seconds extra for passing out, but….” Hobart grins. “You need to learn your lesson, Malcolm. Let's go for two minutes, altogether.” 

Malcolm shakes his head, opens his mouth to beg, but Hobart is already pulling on the rope, lifting Malcolm into the air. His feet kick, connect with the chair and he nearly whiteouts from the pain, but he manages to stay awake, just as the noose tightens and cuts off the last of his airway. 

Hobart hasn’t even started the timer. He picks up his phone from the rickety card table that’s also holding the crowbar, and instead of setting the timer, _still_ , Hobart looks up at Malcolm. “You know you can stop this at any time. Just tell me what I want to know.” 

Malcolm doesn’t react to him. He’s too busy struggling. 

”Your call…” Hobart says, hitting start on the timer. 

~|~ 

Malcolm wonders how much he’d have to move his neck to make it so the next time the noose tightens, it cuts off his carotid. But he doesn’t want to die. He just wants this to end. 

“We’re up to three and a half minutes. I’m impressed,” Hobart tells him. He does actually sound impressed. And like he’s having the time of his life. 

Malcolm makes a ragged, whining sound in response, he can’t even get himself to make a word at this point, he’s too exhausted, in too much pain (he’s been hit with the crowbar half a dozen more times). He just shakes his head weakly. He can’t last for three and a half minutes. He _can’t_. 

He suspects he’s going to die here, before the team finds him. He hopes Gil knows he tried to stay alive. That he didn’t break and tell Hobart where DJ is. 

Hobart moves to kick the chair again. Malcolm gasps desperately while he still can. He knows his face is soaked with tears and snot, he’s giving Hobart exactly what he wants (well, other than the answer to his question), and he should hate himself for it, for giving in, but really...he’s too tired and in too much pain to be angry at himself right now. He can’t keep doing this. 

“Tell me where they are,” Hobart demands. Malcolm whimpers, shakes his head - he doesn’t waste what time he has to breathe with words that will fall on deaf ears. 

He kicks the chair out from under Malcolm’s feet. 

‘ _I was right_ ,’ Malcolm thinks, somewhere around the three minute mark, as the black dots swirling around his head get closer and closer together. ‘ _Can’t last three and a half minutes._ ’ 

Then he doesn’t think anything. 

~|~ 

Malcolm comes to flat on his back. There are hands pressing hard against his chest, pumping blood through his body, jolting his broken ribs (he’s not even sure how many of those he has anymore, just that it’s all pain), Hobart’s face close to his. Malcolm starts to cough, gasping for air. Hobart’s face is _so_ close to his. Malcolm uses the moment of surprise he has, snaps his head up, intending to headbutt Hobart. 

Hobart dodges him easily. Maybe Malcolm misses because his left eye is swollen shut from the crowbar hitting his face, earlier. Hard to aim when you can’t see out of one eye. 

Hobart laughs. He stands up and hauls Malcolm to his feet by his shirt collar. Malcolm tries to stand on his unbroken leg. He’s not so sure he remembers when his left leg was broken. It’s only a step or two to the chair. Malcolm’s throat is too ruined for screaming, but he tries anyway with each step. 

Two steps and he’s in front of the chair. Malcolm stares at it. He thinks he’s supposed to climb onto it, but he can’t figure out how. He can’t put that much weight and pressure on his broken leg. 

“Climb up, or you hang for an extra thirty seconds,” Hobart threatens him. Malcolm knows Hobart can easily lift him from the floor, the rope is on a pulley, but he thinks the bastard likes the ritual of it all. 

Malcolm shakes his head. He can’t. Behind him, Hobart growls in frustration. His patience is wearing thin. Malcolm thinks that Hobart’s frustration might win out before Malcolm’s body gives in (‘again,’ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Martin Whitley, reminds him, he’ll stop breathing _again_ , something Malcolm is trying hard not to think about, about how he’s already died and been revived). Malcolm starts to sway on his feet, exhausted. He might be sobbing, he’s not sure. 

Hobart leaves him there, unsteady on his feet, wondering what would happen if he just sat down, there’s enough slack in the rope, and then there isn’t, because Hobart is pulling on the rope again. And then Malcolm is being lifted in the air. 

Hobart didn’t even ask him, this time, where his son was. Malcolm thinks that’s a very bad sign. Hobart doesn’t set the timer either. 

Malcolm finds the energy in himself to struggle, to be afraid. Hobart is staring at him, raw, naked pleasure in his eyes, and Malcolm knows it for sure. He’s going to die now. He hopes Gil doesn’t blame himself. Malcolm didn’t see this coming, this sadist grabbing him off the street, Gil couldn’t have either. Ainsley will be fine, she’s tough. Dani...Dani he can’t think about right now. His mother is going to kill him for dying like this. 

Malcolm always knew he’d die at the hands of a serial killer. His fate was sealed at ten years old when he tugged on Gil’s sleeve. 

Of course, right as he has that thought, right when he comes to terms with the idea that this is the end, someone throws a flash grenade through the basement window. Everything goes hazy for a few long moments. 

Strong arms wrap around his waist, lift him up, take the tension out of the rope. Malcolm chokes, sobs with relief, gasping in air so desperately. He hardly feels the pain in his ribs, bent over the other person’s shoulder as he is, not for the first few long moments of blessed oxygen flooding his lungs. He coughs and gasps for air, he can’t hear the wheeze in his throat because of the flash grenade means all he can hear is ringing, but goddamn it he can feel it. 

He knows Gil anywhere, even bent half over his shoulder as he is, with spots in his eyes from the flash grenade and one eye swollen shut, he knows it’s Gil holding him. Malcolm sobs in relief. 

“‘il,” Malcolm gasps out. The ringing in his ears means he can’t hear himself, he hopes he says it loud enough. Gil’s arms tighten around him in response. Which would be great, welcome, even, if he hadn’t just spent the last however-many hours playing piñata for a sadist. “Ribs,” he grits out through clenched teeth. Someone must release the rope then, and he pitches forward on Gil’s shoulder more. 

Malcolm flails his legs, it’s the only part of him he can move to try and balance himself. It’s a bad idea, his left foot hits Gil’s leg and Malcolm thinks he might scream, then, when it jolts his broken shin. 

He definitely screams. 

Okay, so it’s more a hoarse cry than a scream, even with his ringing ears he’s sure of that. 

Suddenly he’s tipping backwards, away from Gil’s solid shoulder, but someone has their hands on his back and they’re guiding him down - oh, maybe more than one someone it’s hard to tell how many hands are on him but he’s laying on the floor again, on his trapped arms and fuck that hurts his shoulder but he can see Gil’s face and Gil looks upset, so upset, but it’s Gil and he’s there and Malcolm knows he’s safe now. 

Gil kneels next to him. His mouth is moving and Malcolm can’t hear what he’s saying, not at first but suddenly his hearing cuts in and he hears Gil shouting: “--off his neck, Jesus--” and someone is tugging on the noose and Malcolm lets out a whine and tries to get away he can’t go up again, he can’t-- 

“--Kid. Kid. It’s okay,” Gil is saying, over and over, his warm hand on Malcolm’s sweat and tear soaked cheek, the one that’s not swollen. Warm and solid and there. Gil’s here, Malcolm reminds himself. Gil won’t let anyone hang him again. 

The noose is loosened and slips up over his head. Malcolm gasps for air. He knows his airway is swollen, is probably swelling worse, but he feels like it’s the best he’s been able to breathe in _hours_. 

“Breathe, Malcolm, good,” Gil is saying, and Malcolm has no intentions of stopping. 

That lasts until they try and roll him on his side to cut the ties around his arms. He’s not even sure what it hurts more, his ribs, his leg, his face, or his shoulder. It’s all one white-hot supernova of pain that has him crying out again. Someone must figure out what the trouble is, at least some of it, because instead of rolling him on his side, they move him so he’s sitting up and somehow he winds up in Gil’s lap, one of Gil’s arms low across his back, Malcolm’s good shoulder (thank fuck) against Gil’s chest. 

It takes Malcolm a moment to realize that the weak keening noises of pain he hears are coming from him. They free his arms and he thinks he might pass out for a moment, from the pain of his dislocated shoulder jolting forward because the next thing he’s aware of, he’s on his back again. 

He kind of liked being in Gil’s lap. It was warm. Gil is looking down at him, talking at someone else for a moment and then back at him, smiling in that way Gil has that says ‘I know everything is awful but I’m here with you, kid.’ Malcolm smiles up at him, wishes that would make the desperate fear in Gil’s eyes go away. 

“‘Di’n't tell ‘im,” Malcolm forces out. It’s hard to talk. His throat doesn’t want him to, he feels like he’s breathing through a straw made of sandpaper and broken glass. But he needs Gil to know that. That he didn’t tell Hobart where to find his son. 

Gil smiles at him, a real smile this time. The ‘I’m proud of you’ smile that Malcolm only ever seems to get from Gil. “I know you didn’t, kid. Try not to talk anymore though, okay? Just focus on breathing.” 

There’s the unmistakable pounding sound of paramedics stomping into the room with their boots and equipment and needles. Malcolm knows he should stay awake, but he can’t. He drifts away smiling back at Gil. 

~|~ 

Later, _days_ later, though he won’t know that yet, Malcolm will wake up. He’ll panic for a moment, looking up at the ceiling of the hospital, before he turns his head and sees he’s not alone. Gil will be there. His mother and Ainsley too, on either side of the older man. They’ll all be asleep, leaning on each of Gil’s shoulders, Gil’s head tipped to lean against Jessica’s in his sleep. 

Malcolm will realize what woke him when a shadow moves across the floor. He’ll look up and see Dani watching all of them from the doorway. 

And then he’ll drift back to sleep, knowing he’s safe with his guardians watching over him.

**Author's Note:**

> \---  
>  **CW** : Malcolm and co are after a killer that has killed teenagers. Their deaths and/or bodies are not vividly described, but Malcolm goes through what they would have. The killer abused his teenage son in a similar manner and quite possibly wishes to kill him that way. Malcolm is tortured via being hung from his neck several times, resuscitated after his heart stops, and beaten with a crowbar, resulting in broken bones.  
> \---
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone!


End file.
